Nevada high court ends casino mogul Steve Wynn’s defamation suit against The Associated Press
LAS VEGAS — LAS VEGAS (AP) —
The Nevada Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a defamation lawsuit that casino magnate Steve Wynn brought against The Associated Press in 2018, rejecting his request to have a jury hear his claim that he was defamed by an AP article about two women who accused Wynn of sexual misconduct.
The seven-member court confirmed a February ruling by a three-judge panel that cited the state’s anti-SLAPP law, or “strategic litigation against public participation,” which blocks lawsuits brought to intimidate or silence critics.
That ruling stated that the anti-SLAPP statutes “are designed to limit precisely the type of claim at issue here, namely, that a news organization publishes an article in a good faith effort to inform its readers about a matter of clear public importance.”
In what the unanimous court called an attempt to clarify the law, Justice Ron Parraguirre wrote that Wynn, as a public figure, “must provide clear and convincing evidence to reasonably infer that the publication was made with actual malicious intent.”
“The public had an interest in understanding the history of misconduct allegedly committed by one of Nevada’s most recognized figures,” the ruling said, “and the article directly addresses that interest.”
Attorneys representing Wynn personally and those handling the case did not respond to emails and phone calls seeking comment.
“The Associated Press is very pleased with the Nevada Supreme Court’s decision,” Lauren Easton, AP vice president of corporate communications, said in a statement.
The AP plans to claim compensation for legal costs through a lower court.
Dominic Gentile, a veteran Nevada attorney known for his work on First Amendment issues, said the ruling “will make it even more difficult for a public figure to bring a lawsuit over expressive conduct.”
“In most cases, the standard is ‘a preponderance of the evidence’ that a lawsuit is being brought to suppress free speech,” he said. “This case has taken that and raised the bar for someone who is a public figure not to be thrown out of court.”
Gentile has practiced law in the state since 1979 and has taught at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Boyd School of Law. Malice, he said, means “you either know it’s false or you didn’t do enough to determine that it was.”
Wynn, now 82 and living in Florida, is the billionaire developer of a luxury casino empire in the U.S. and the Chinese gambling enclave of Macao. He has consistently denied allegations of sexual misconduct, which were first reported by the Wall Street Journal in January 2018.
He stepped down as CEO of Wynn Resorts Ltd. after the reports became public, divested himself of the company’s stock and stepped down from the board. Last year, he severed ties with the industry he helped shape in Las Vegas, reaching an agreement with Nevada gambling regulators to pay a fine of $10 millionwithout any admission of wrongdoing.
In a flurry of settlements in 2019, the Nevada Gaming Commission fined Wynn’s former company record amount of 20 million dollars for failing to investigate sexual misconduct claims filed against him before he stepped down. Gambling regulators in Massachusetts fined the company and a top executive $35.5 million because he failed to disclose allegations of sexual misconduct against Wynn when applying for a permit for a Boston-area resort.
Wynn Resorts agreed in November 2019 to accept $20 million in damages from Wynn and an additional $21 million from insurance companies on behalf of current and former Wynn Resorts employees. settle shareholder lawsuits in which the company’s directors are accused of failing to report allegations of misconduct.
These agreements also stipulated that there should be no acknowledgement of misconduct.
Wynn filed his defamation lawsuit in April 2018 against AP, one of its reporters, and one of the women, Halina Kuta. Kuta had reported to police that Wynn had raped her in Chicago in the 1970s and that she had given birth to their daughter in a gas station bathroom.
Neither accuser was identified in the AP report. Their names and other identifying information were blacked out in documents obtained by the AP through a public records request. Las Vegas police declined to provide additional details, saying too much time had passed since Kuta said the events occurred in 1973 or 1974. No charges were ever filed against Wynn.
Normally, AP does not publish the names of people who say they are victims of sexual abuse, but Kuta agreed to be named in future news reports.
Wynn’s lawyers argued that the article, which cited police documents, failed to describe all elements of Kuta’s story that could cast doubt on her accusation.
A trial judge later ruled that Kuta had defamed Wynn with her claims, which the judge called “wholly fanciful,” and awarded Wynn a token $1 in damages.